Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a landlocked country bordering Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China (via the narrow Wakhan Corridor). Its modern boundaries were substantially fixed by the Durand Line of 1893, an Anglo-Afghan agreement that demarcated the frontier with British India; Afghanistan has historically disputed its permanence, while Pakistan treats it as the settled international border. The country gained full control of its foreign affairs from Britain through the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919), following the Third Anglo-Afghan War, and is celebrated as Afghan Independence Day. Afghanistan is a founding-era member of the United Nations (admitted 1946) and a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC, joined 2007).

The contemporary political character of Afghanistan is defined by the collapse of the Western-backed Islamic Republic and the Taliban capture of Kabul on 15 August 2021, following the withdrawal of US forces under the Doha Agreement of 29 February 2020 between the United States and the Taliban. The Soviet intervention of December 1979, condemned by UN General Assembly Resolution ES-6/2 (1980), the subsequent mujahideen war, the first Taliban emirate (1996–2001), and the US-led intervention after 9/11 (authorised domestically by the 2001 AUMF) form the immediate historical backdrop. The 2004 Constitution of the Islamic Republic has effectively been suspended; the Taliban govern as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under a strict interpretation of Sharia, without a formal written constitution.

As of 2026, no state has extended full de jure diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government, though several states (including China, which accredited a Taliban-nominated ambassador, and the UAE) have engaged in de facto relations. Afghanistan's UN seat remains contested: the credentials of the former Republic's representatives have been retained while the General Assembly's Credentials Committee has repeatedly deferred a decision. The country is subject to UN Security Council sanctions under the Resolution 1267 regime (with Resolution 2255 and the 2021 Resolution 2593 reaffirming counter-terrorism obligations). Severe humanitarian crisis, frozen central-bank reserves, the ban on female secondary and university education, and exclusion of women from most employment have dominated international engagement. The International Criminal Court resumed its Afghanistan investigation in 2022. In July 2025 the ICC issued arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders for the crime of persecution on gender grounds.

For competitive exams, Afghanistan recurs across International Relations and current-affairs sections (UPSC GS Paper II — India's neighbourhood and international institutions; FSOT world history and geography; CSS International Relations). The most-tested angles are: the legal distinction between de facto and de jure recognition and its consequences for UN representation; the Durand Line dispute and Afghanistan–Pakistan relations; the strategic significance of the Doha Agreement and the manner of US withdrawal; India's developmental stakes (the Salma/Afghan–India Friendship Dam, the new Parliament building, and connectivity via Iran's Chabahar Port bypassing Pakistan); and the applicability of the Refugee Convention and the principle of non-refoulement to Afghan asylum-seekers. Candidates should be precise about which entity holds the UN seat versus which exercises effective control on the ground.